


Litmus

by softly_speaking_valkyrie



Series: Femslash February 2019 [8]
Category: Final Fantasy XIII
Genre: Day 8, F/F, Falling In Love, Femslash, Femslash February, Femslash February 2019, First Kiss, Holding Hands, Kisses, Kissing, Lanille - Freeform, Love, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mild Tragedy, Protection, Romance, Stargazing, hand holding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-24 12:20:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17704163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softly_speaking_valkyrie/pseuds/softly_speaking_valkyrie
Summary: Femslash February Day 8! With a lull in the action of Cocoon, in the arms of strangers and men eager to play a game of politics and war with the forces of Sanctum and Psycomm, Lightning takes her frustration out on a small training exercise on the ship, pushing herself to deal with the fate of Serah and the rest of her party. Vanille can't sleep either and decides to make some confessions to Lightning, taking her out onto the roof of the cruiser to see the stars and share some kisses...





	Litmus

Lightning flailed her kick high into the air to strike at the first wall of marker drones, the white lights of the targets flicking to amber and then disappearing altogether after a second strike. 

The beautiful rose-pink-haired warrior let out a series of grunts and hefty wails as she pushed her body to the extreme, pulling out her rifle-blade to slash and hack at the outer wall as the targets zapped into holographic existence. Her fingers tingled with the static sensation of her lightning and she kicked upward in a bicycle kick flurry of a semi-bare leg.

She thought of Serah, of Snow, of Hope and of the constant battle now with Psycomm; running and fighting with them wherever she and her band of l’cie found themselves around Cocoon. Still, she had no idea what her (or anyone of her party’s) focus was at all. They were lost lambs in the hands of desperate and tenacious individuals for safety. For now. She didn’t like it one bit, after the confrontation in Hope’s hometown with Psycomm and the Corsairs – her own comrades. Fang had brought in the cavalry and saved them with Snow, but now Lightning was retreating into her usually reserved and brooding self.

There was a serene sense of strength in her isolationism as she reached for and held her pendant in a fist.

The targets continued to circle her; one band of them moved clockwise and the other moved in a counter-clockwise fashion, making her eyes struggle to focus.

Lightning breathed, holding her necklace in hand and thinking back to Serah. Her crystallised body, looking like an ornate bed of crystal was in the hangar bay, protected in a strongbox and under guard. Whatever Lightning’s focus was, her party’s combined focus, it was to do with her sister and how she had achieved her own and thus turned to beautiful crystal before Psycomm had tried to destroy the Pulse Fal’cie.

“The key is not to look at the surrounding movement, but only to focus on the movements of the target. Once you see them and only them, they can’t escape your eyes and you’ll have them right where you want them,” Lightning told herself in a trance-like recollection of her lessons during the advanced training. Her skill was something she was thankful for, breathing as she honed in on the remaining targets floating around her on invisible rails.

“Take your time, wait for the precise moment to strike and... Cut your opponent down!” She bellowed, striking in a ‘blitz’ move as she whirled herself and her jagged, curved sword in a rapid spin, striking both walls of markers at once.

They all wiped amber and then faded into nothing. A stark and bass-tone horn signalled the training program finished and Lightning checked her watch – it was now two in the morning.

A faint but echoed clapping came from the way Lightning had come in from the quarters' block, a clapping she recognised familiarly by now, after travelling with its origin for some weeks now. She turned to see the smaller woman in furs and beaded necklaces, with a slightly darker tone of lovely pink hair and such a young complexion it made Lightning look older than what even she was.

Vanille waved from the bulkhead opening and skipped gaily over to the brooding Corsair. “Can’t sleep?” She asked, smiling as per usual. Lightning couldn’t recollect a time even when Vanille wasn’t smiling, despite the circumstances of their lives now. Even as an l’cie (and further along her short time span as one than the others) Vanille was still bubbly, optimistic and full of life, more so than any other person on the ship no doubt. “Me neither, Lightning, not while we’re on this ship. The engines are keeping me up...” She confessed, her body slouching as she stood.

It made Lightning giggle a little. “You couldn’t sleep that well even on the ground, Vanille,” she reminded her, grinning a little and better for seeing the smaller and wilder woman, leaning in almost all directions on her versatile hips and strong and bare legs.

“True, but if you’re in here, that must mean that you’re having trouble sleeping too, hmm?” The plucky smaller girl asked, knowing the answer already. Even after such little time in her company, Vanille knew how Lightning operated better than Lightning could anticipate. She supposed she was too similar to Fang in a way, the woman Vanille knew the best in her life. Reading Lightning must have been second nature to the smaller woman.

Lightning, not wanting to admit anything, glanced away from the beautiful girl and bit her bottom lip in quaint frustration at herself. Vanille looked around at her, following her luminous eyes and deep-seated thunderous nature.

“Aha! It’s true, you can’t sleep. I knew it, you’re too easy to read, Light. Fang does the same. She tries to exercise past midnight, and I always find her and tell her to get her butt back to bed,” Vanille told Lightning, smiling and feeling a little proud of her in her expert ability to read people and their struggle. She could read some of the demons in Lightning, but would never hold them to her like a mirror – it didn’t take a genius to know that the rose-pink-haired beauty was still concerned for Serah’s wellbeing, even after the news that she would be fine. But there was of course more to the brooding soldier.

Vanille took Lightning’s hand in her own and held it tenderly.

The Corsair cocked her suave and beautifully pink eyebrows. “When did you start calling me ‘Light’?”

“Well... I know Snow calls you ‘Light’, and personally, I consider you to be our light right now. Even if you’re still scared for Serah, and we still don’t know our focus yet, I know your light will lead us and help us complete it, Lightning. That’s why I’m going to call you ‘Light’... If that’s alright,” Vanille confessed, a little meekly as she held onto Lightning’s tender and yet strong hand in her own. She was like a child, but Lightning knew Vanille was more mature than even she gave her credit for, the way she could connect to people and empathise with them.

Her tenacity for pushing people over the edge of their own conservative reservations was something that puzzled even Fang. How she had inspired and enabled Hope to traverse through war and infiltrate the Pulse Fal’cie after Snow, and how she had helped Sazh come to terms with what had happened to his son – all of it made Vanille more pivotal to the group than maybe even she anticipated.

Lightning simply hummed in response, a little lost for words and blushing already as she gripped back onto Vanille’s soft palm. “Oh, well... Thanks, Vanille... But I don’t think I have the light you think I do...”

Vanille gripped her other hand now, tugging on Lightning’s limbs. “No, dummy! I didn’t say you have the light! You have that too... But you are the light, our light, Lightning! You have to lead us!” She barked to the soldier, demanding her attention. Silence fell between to the two of them now, Lightning shocked at how Vanille felt.

“You’re a lot stronger and inspiring than you think you are, Light...”

Then, more silence. Lightning couldn’t respond to this, she didn’t know how. She’d been a soldier for years, a moody and relatively emotionless woman with only Serah for family and only a will to protect her home and her sibling. But Lightning didn’t know how to handle much else. The love between Serah and Snow often made her sick, on the account of how much of a knucklehead and self-righteous punching bag Snow could turn out to be. Affection from any source directed at her, every time, made Lightning void and speechless. She didn’t know what to do now.

What she did know, was that she didn’t ever want to let go of Vanille’s hands as she held them.

The smaller woman twitched a little, her face jolting and her cheeks blushed a similar pink to her beautiful hair.

“You know what I like to do sometimes when I can’t sleep?” Vanille asked, still looking down a little but eventually beaming up at the taller Lightning with wide emerald eyes.

***

The night’s air was briskly cold as they climbed up the hatchway ladder and onto to the roof of the ship, feeling the breeze hit them like a small tidal force. The stars were more vast than either of them had ever seen above them, a sea of abundant and utterly stunning lights above their heads – both sets of pink hair bathed in a deep navy blue of the night’s sky veranda. Lightning’s eyes were sprawls of crystal blue glass reflecting the beautiful blanket of far-flung suns deep out in the solar system. Their light dotted the heavens like diamonds, sapphires, every gemstone that was indicative of crystal. Lightning thought she would cry. All the time, as they walked up on the metal hull, she and Vanille held hands tightly, not worried about falling off at all.

The fighter squadron escort zoomed in a formation up ahead, spraying a bright green plasma trail from the butt-end of each ship. The whirling buzz like insects made Vanille smile as she held her collarbone, feeling a little cold. Once the attack wing had overtaken the main cruiser, all was quiet again as the wind died entirely and they were moving on the back of the metal hulk as it soared above Cocoon.

“I come up here and watch the stars when I can’t sleep. You can always see the same stars, but depending on where we are, they always look different,” Vanille told Lightning, guiding her to a slope on the ship’s back and setting herself down on the cool hull. The cold wrapped around her like a blanket but she didn’t shiver – the cold to her exposed arms and thighs was soothing, reminding her that she was still herself.

“Aren’t you cold?” Lightning asked, sitting down next to the laying girl and bringing her knees up to her bust, holding her legs in.

“Not really. I like the cold around me. Reminds me that I’m still alive sometimes and that I’ve still got time left,” Vanille began to confess, pulling up one frill of her fur waistband to show Lightning the brand of the l’cie they all shared. The only difference to hers was that the arrows counted eight and the lids of the brand’s eye were beginning to open. “Don’t tell Fang, Light.”

Lightning shook her head, silently promising she wouldn’t, and then she joined the smaller woman, lying down next to her. “We’re gonna find our focus, Vanille. I promise you,” Lightning poured to her companion, gently tracing the flesh around her black brand.

Vanille looked back to the piercing blue eyes and felt a tinged of tragedy in her heart. “Don’t make a girl a promise you can’t keep,” she reminded Lightning, her eyes a little glassy. She began to shiver, but not from the cold as Lightning leaned over her, eyes locked and the soldier’s hands coming to grasp her bare arms protectively.

Without another word, both women engaged, and kissed each other in a longing, lingering exchange, trying to protect the other and their apprehensions with the kiss. Vanille felt shaken, but Lightning holding her brought stability, and Vanille holding Lightning brought the withered soldier some love and affection she realised her damaged mind was critically missing.


End file.
